1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatic sewing apparatus which is suitable for sewing a slide fastener chain onto a pair of long and wide cloth pieces such as pajamas for children, a curtain, clothes for women, a sheet or a cushion cover, and particularly to an automatic sewing apparatus for a fastener chain in which a size thereof is reduced and the labor of an operator is saved by the effective utilization of a space which cannot be used practically.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there has been developed this kind of apparatus for automatically sewing a slide fastener chain onto a pair of long and wide cloths. For example, according to Japanese Utility Modes Publication S63-12856B (JP-UM-B-63-12856), a towing device for reciprocating a gripper holding a sewn and discharged tip portion according to a sewing speed horizontally in a discharge direction is provided on the discharge side of a sewing machine constituting the main body of the sewing machine and the gripper is supported to be able to tilt at a predetermined angle in a horizontal state. By the tilt of the gripper, even if the length of the protrusion of the towing device is smaller than the length of a sewn product, a towing distance is increased. Thus, a long sewn product can be towed to a predetermined position. In addition, the sewn product can be prevented from being accumulated in disorder on the discharge side of the sewing machine. Consequently, the efficiency of a sewing work can be enhanced.
In order to sew a long cloth piece, moreover, a comparative complicated manual work is required for positioning a cloth piece in the sewing machine or a manual work for sewing requires such a skill as to accurately align the cloth piece with respect to a unit type slide fastener to be sewn thereonto. For this reason, a large number of defective clothes are often made. In order to solve such a problem, according to Japanese Patent Publication S63-79691A (JP-A-63-79691), for example, a slide fastener chain fed from a continuous feeding reel can be mechanically brought into a sewing step portion. When two cloth pieces are caused to come in contact with mechanical guide means to operate an apparatus, the cloth pieces are mechanically aligned accurately with the slide fastener chain, and at the same time, the edge portions of the cloth pieces are bent to come to a portion provided under the slide fastener chain. When automatic positioning is completed, a sewing machine sews both side portions of the slide fastener chain onto a pair of cloth pieces. While the slide fastener chain is being sewn, the cloth is held under tension.
According to this publication, the slide fastener chain is automatically cut to have a constant length in response to the fact that the rear end of a cloth is sensed. Accordingly, the length of the slide fastener provided to the clothes is determined by the length of a sewn product. A cloth sewn onto the slide fastener chain is pulled by pulling means to a point placed apart from the apparatus, and a discharging device in a horizontal direction delivers a sewn product to a storage table. The storage table is automatically brought down with the accumulation of the sewn product. When the cloth is moved in the horizontal direction to reach the mounting rack of the storage table, the pulling means is returned to an adjacent position to the sewing machine and this operation is repeated.
JP-UM-B-63-12856 gazette and JP-A-63-79691 gazette are known as related art.
In the conventional sewing operation of this type, a sewing operator stands on this side of an apparatus and sets a pair of cloth pieces to be newly sewn into a predetermined position on a base (table), and feeds them to a sewing section through a feed roller. By the sewing apparatus disclosed in each of the publications, the same operation is carried out. Moreover, the same operator usually collects a predetermined number of sewn cloth pieces in the forward part of the sewing section of the sewing apparatus and delivers them to a storage section. If the operator does not carry out the delivery, another operator delivers the cloth pieces. For this reason, it is necessary for the operator to move to the forward part of the apparatus—every delivery. Consequently, a physical fatigue is caused. When a special operator for the delivery is prepared, personnel expenses are required correspondingly so that the price of a product is influenced.